Why print and online marketing often get in their own way.
When we think of accessibility, most people think of kerbs or the steps of an intercity train. But we also encounter barriers in other places in our everyday lives. Especially in marketing. And barriers are not only encountered by people with disabilities, but by almost everyone.
Peter Nagel, Creative Director of not everybody’s darling, and Lukas Muckenfuß, Creative Director of campaigners Network, explain in a double interview how barriers can be removed or prevented from the outset.
Lukas, what kind of barriers do you encounter in your daily work at an agency?
Barriers usually appear where you wouldn’t expect them. Of course, every graphic designer knows that yellow type does not stand out against a white background and that font size four is always difficult to read. But ultimately there are countless other pitfalls.
That sounds challenging. What would be such pitfalls?
For example, a lack of clarity. Layouts need orientation. The rule is: less is more! A particularly big barrier are cemeteries of letters, texts that are too long and too complicated. If someone starts a sentence with a half-sentence, throws around genitives and doesn’t put in the first full stop until after five lines at the earliest, I always take it to our copywriter first.
Peter, is that your experience too?
Yes, absolutely. Sometimes you really have to go through the motions when you come across existing texts. I see the even greater challenge whenever accessibility is not only for comprehensibility, but is required by law.
Where do legal requirements for accessibility specifically appear?
There is an EU directive that regulates this. According to it, all bodies that are obliged to comply with EU public procurement rules must also comply with accessibility for websites and mobile applications. This concerns e.g.
public authorities, foundations, banks and insurance companies, or even professional associations.
There is an EU directive that regulates this. According to it, all bodies that are obliged to comply with EU public procurement rules must also comply with accessibility for websites and mobile applications. This concerns e.g.
public authorities, foundations, banks and insurance companies, or even professional associations.
And how is this implemented in concrete terms?
Let me give you an example. We developed media formats as well as systems and processes for the Employer’s Liability Insurance Association for the Construction Industry on the basis of a holistic communication strategy that had to be implemented completely barrier-free. In concrete terms, we made sure at every step that readability and user interfaces were completely barrier-free. Texts must be able to be read out automatically, on the other hand, videos must be provided with subtitles. And all barriers must still be removed, for example, when viewing a website on a smartphone. That’s where our developers come in.
Shouldn’t that be standard by now, Lukas?
Sure. It would be great if everything could be barrier-free, user-friendly and, on top of that, conspicuous enough to meet everyone’s needs.
However, you can only achieve this if you have access to an interdisciplinary team as large as our two agencies. The online department of a medium-sized company can’t do that itself. And that is understandable.
